Trained at the Moscow Academy of Printing And Arts and, since 2004, painting full-time in London, Elena Kartintseva was a relative late comer to fine art. Initially a physics and geography student, her switch prompted her etching tutor Avanisyan to remark: "You either never draw, or you have been doing it all your life. But the talent you have I want to develop."
After five years of dedicated study, she graduated with Honours and was a First Prize diploma winner, too. More importantly, she never returned to physics - turning instead to the world of graphic design where she enjoyed a seven-year career in the cut-and-thrust atmosphere of the commercial publishing world.
Throughout that time, she continued to paint and etch, developing her own style - vibrant, open canvases, where reality takes on an almost dream-like intensity. The question of space is probed by provocative, often witty juxtapositions, though it's her bold use of light and colour that signpost the work's true intent - illumination and contemplation.
"My stills have the ambition of landscapes," she says, "while my landscapes tend towards still life."
Review
"Influenced by Cezanne, Japanese old masters and modern American landscape, Kartintseva's work is bright, vibrant and deceptively complex. Bold and often playful, it sometimes pushes reality to the
limit, where the vividly defined dissolves into something more metaphysical. She captures the mystique of material forms."
Mark Paytress
Journalist, author and broadcaster, 2012
